


Picture

by Harlecat



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: AU: Everything's Normal, Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, friends growing up!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 09:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5535362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harlecat/pseuds/Harlecat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rey is eight she tells Finn that her parents are leaving. She is going to move in with some family that Finn has never met. For a while they think that means she’ll be moving away but then it turns out that they will be coming to her- something about their neighborhood not being good for their son. So instead of moving out of town she just moves down the street and now Finn and Poe can come over to her house.</p><p>A meandering fic about Finn, Rey, Poe, and sometimes Kylo growing up together. Finn chases after Rey but mostly they all run together.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> It's funny because I didn't even ship Rey/Finn at first? I'm a Kylo/Rey Finn/Poe? But now I ship this too, so I wrote it. Enjoy.

Finn proposes to Rey at a young age. He gets down on one knee and asks her if she will marry him. She folds her arms and turns up her nose and tells him she thinks he is rushing into things. Finn asks her why.

He is six years old. Rey is five. He thinks he sees her blushing when she turns away.

On Finn’s seventh birthday he asks Rey if she’ll give him a kiss. She goes red in the face and shoves a present towards him with so much strength, it feels like a punch to the gut. Finn grins at her and she storms away. When Rey turns six, he tells her to close her eyes so he can give her her present. Rey runs shrieking and Finn chases after her with Poe and almost forgets why. No matter how fast he runs, she always evades him.

Finn doesn’t see a lot of Rey over summer vacation. Not that he saw a lot of her at school, only at recess, and that was why recess was the best part of the day. But he still saw her then. Over summer they only have play dates, and those can only come so often. But playing with Rey is more fun than anything, she runs like lightning and makes swords from whatever she can find. They duel and Rey says that if he wins she’ll let him kiss her. Rey always wins and that offer is eventually forgotten.

Some days Poe comes over. Those days are also pretty great. One day Poe’s mother teaches them how to make microwave s’mores and they all sit, entranced, and watch the graham crackers turn round and round. When she pulls them out, the marshmallows are perfectly crisp and the chocolate is melted. Poe’s house is the best because his mother cooks the most delicious foods, with flavors Finn didn’t even know existed. Rey always cleans off the entire plate. They rarely go to Rey’s house because her parents are always busy but that’s fun too.

The next school year is lots more fun. Every day after school they all go to Poe’s house and his mother gives them snacks she’s made for them that day. When Poe turns eight the whole class comes over but Poe spends the whole time with them, thinking up ways to find out what’s inside his presents without opening them.

When Finn turns eight, he asks Rey if he gets that kiss this year. She makes a disgusted sound and hits him in the side with his gift. Finn says that one day he’ll marry her and she reminds him that he can’t do that if he can’t catch him. Finn spends most of the day chasing after Rey.

Finn wants to get Rey a sword for her birthday. Not a real sword, then she would chop off his head and take over the world, but one of the hollow plastic ones they sell at the toy store across from the park. They have one with little blue lights up the sides, and whenever it hits something it makes a _vrrrk_ sound. It looks like it’s _real_ metal and it’s the best sword he’s ever seen, and Rey deserves the best, but his mother picks up a pink sketch book for Rey the morning of the party and a beautiful colored pencil set which Finn is absolutely certain she will never touch. But the next day Rey brings him a picture she drew herself of her and Finn and Poe and Finn has never seen more beautiful artwork.

When Rey is eight she tells Finn that her parents are leaving. She is going to move in with some family that Finn has never met. For a while they think that means she’ll be moving away but then it turns out that they will be coming to her- something about their neighborhood not being good for their son. So instead of moving out of town she just moves down the street and now Finn and Poe can come over to her house.

On their first time over, a man introduces himself as Han. He tells Finn that he has heard a lot about him, and that Rey really likes him. Rey blushes and ducks behind Leia. Poe arrives and Han yells for someone named Ben to come and meet Rey’s boyfriends, which makes Poe go pink and stammer that he’s just her friend, but Finn holds his chin a little higher.

Ben is weird. He tells everyone to call him Kylo and rolls his eyes when they don’t. The only people he talks to are online and Rey says that he isn’t supposed to talk to them, because it makes Han and Leia mad. His online friends are “bad influences.” Whenever Kylo annoys Rey she tells him that she’ll tell Leia he’s been talking to them again. When Finn and Poe are over he almost never bothers them. He just sits in his room and they can hear music playing with bad words and weird premises. They’re a strange family overall, Kylo doesn’t call his parents Mom or Dad, just “Han” and “Leia”, and that’s only when he _has_ to say his names. The two are not married, either, which Finn can't understand.

Han and Leia are great, so Finn doesn’t understand why. Han teases Kylo and calls him Ben, but it’s that _dad_ kind of teasing, the same he uses on Rey and on Finn. But Kylo acts like everybody hates him and he hates everybody back. He’s _really_ weird.

One summer, Han and Leia take them camping. Poe and Finn are both invited and they say that Kylo can take a friend _from school_ , and Kylo asks if he can just stay home instead. They make him come.

Kylo spends the first day complaining that his phone has no service and the next complaining that it’s died and he can’t charge it. He pouts the next day and sulks around in the tent listening to his music, then his MP3 is dead too. He finally comes out half way through the fourth day and sits around watching everyone with a sullen expression.

Finn has a fantastic time. They camp by a river, and he and Rey and Poe race around with their pants and sleeves rolled up so they can plunge their hands into the water and grab fish. On the second day, near lunch time, Han reveals that he’s had a fishing pole the whole time and they fight over who will use it first. Rey wings, of course- she splashes the both of them and drenches herself in the process, and the fish absolutely refuse to bite all day.

When dinnertime approaches on their fourth day, Han puts Kylo on fishing duty. Kylo drags his feet and sits down with the pole and laments that he’s never going to catch _anything_ , there probably aren’t even fish in the lake. He complains as the sun sets and Han starts a fire to cook another camp dinner.

Everyone settles around the fire in a moment of perfect bliss, which is promptly broken by a terrified shriek and the sounds of splashing. Han is the first to react, laughing as he jumps up to run towards the river. Rey nearly falls over from cackling.

Han snatches the fishing pole from Kylo and starts to reel it in, but Kylo immediately shouts, “I’m _fine,_ Dad!” and stops screaming to take the fish in himself. He reels the line in calmly, looking forward very deliberately, and pulls in a slightly mangled fish. Han cheers and claps Kylo on the back and congratulates him for catching dinner. From that moment on Kylo is the designated fisher. Something about his burning indifference to the fish really calls to them.

On the fifth day they all go farther down the riverside, past the trees and too a rockier part. Kylo pretends not to be interested but follows them all down. Han teaches them how to make a little noose with a long piece of grass, that will tighten when you pull it, but break if it gets too tight. Kylo snorts and asks why they’d ever need to know that.

Han says he’s glad Kylo asked, and calls them over to a particularly flat rock. Sitting on top of it, basking in the light, is a lizard almost as long as his hand. He beckons Rey over and helps her line up the grass. She slips it around the lizards neck and pulls it into her hands. Finn and Poe both hold it and Leia shows them how stroking its stomach will calm it down.

Kylo tells them that if they cut off the lizard’s tail it’ll grow back. Leia tells Kylo not to cut off the lizard’s tail.

Han helps them make more little nooses. Leia shows them all little shell shapes inside of the rocks and tells them about how the ocean used to reach up to the rocks and these are fossils left behind. Kylo and Rey both have a keen sense for where the shell prints are and gather up the stones with them. Kylo still seems bored, but he carries back a large pile of his stones and leaves them in a heap by his tent flap.

Finn tries his hand at fishing again the next day. All is going well when a sudden pull yanks him forward, and he falls face first in the water. He hears everyone laughing as he emerges and grins, before running to hug Rey. She shrieks and runs away so he won’t get her wet. So he tackles Poe and they fall into the river, then Rey jumps in and they get their clothes all wet.

Kylo finally gets in the water after that. He screams when he accidentally finds what looks like a gray lobster. Han calls it a crawdad and pries it off of his hands, and tells Kylo to stop catching all the food and let him show off for a bit. Kylo blames Rey for shouting at him to stop being a wimp and get in, so he dives on top of her. Rey screams and laughs and Finn thinks he sees Kylo grinning.

By the next year they are all in middle school. Kylo always eats lunch with them, but that doesn’t mean he’s their friend, it just means that they’re the only people who don’t make fun of him. He reads and Poe shows off his action figures. Sometimes Rey does her homework, but normally she and Finn and Poe all talk about everything they can think of. Sometimes Kylo closes his book so he can tell them they’re all being stupid. Finn does not need to ask Rey to go to dances with him because they all go together, except for Kylo. He always stays home.

Han and Leia throw the whole grade a party when they graduate. It is the first time Finn goes into Kylo’s room, because they all hide out in there while bad music plays from outside, and Finn can’t wait for high school, because maybe then people will be less annoying. Kylo lays on his bedspread with large headphones on Rey looks through his desk drawers while he won’t notice and lists every item she finds. Kylo has an odd amount of switchblades and several inappropriate magazines. Giggling, Rey pulls out a studded collar. Finn falls over in silent laugher and Poe’s covers his gleeful grin. Kylo doesn’t hear them through his loud, angry music. Rey lowers it back into the drawer and falls over, guffawing. Kylo slips off his headphones and asks what’s so funny.

Finn thinks about asking Rey to their first high school dance but Rey invites them all over to watch movies that night instead. Finn asks Poe if he thinks Rey likes him. Poe laughs, and Finn asks what that’s supposed to mean. Poe won’t say.

They all go to their first dance in sophomore year, except for Kylo, who stays home for no reason other than his own resilient disinterest. In their junior year, Rey drags him to homecoming and forces him to go back and forth for punch until he has no choice but to dance. Finn wants to ask her do the slow dance with him, but Rey had already demanded that Kylo dance with her, and he is clearly embarrassed. Rey is satisfied with his mortification, and goes to get them all cookies.

Rey goes with a boy Finn has never met to their senior homecoming. They have lunch a few times before and she buys a nice dress. She makes them all go shopping and asks them what they think of it. Poe makes lewd comments and Finn tells her she looks beautiful. Kylo takes out an earbud and asks if they said something, and why is Rey dressed so strange? Finn and Poe go with Kylo to homecoming, and they spend the whole time sitting around watching Rey try harder and harder to get her date to dance. Halfway through the evening she comes and collapses into a chair with them and says she’s told her date she’d going to the bathroom, and can they please leave now? Kylo jumps up to bring the car around. They go and get ice cream and Kylo asks Rey how she’s planning to dump the guy’s sorry ass, and for once seems to be enjoying himself.

They all go to prom in Kylo’s car. It’s a beaten up old thing, a gift from Han. Kylo has covered the entire back in stickers in an effort to make it look more his own. To Finn, it just looks like an emo seventh grader and an older spinster waged a war and left a trail of strange sayings and pictures behind. But his favorite is the one that says “I like poetry, long walks on the beach, and poking dead things with a stick.”

When Finn gets to Rey’s house, Leia and Han are taking pictures of her and Kylo outside. Kylo is wearing a suit that looks exactly like Finn and Poe’s, except Finn has a tie that’s the same color as Rey’s dress. He pestered her for a month before she would tell him what color to buy, since she wouldn’t let him see. Poe has a bright pink bowtie and Kylo doesn’t have anything around his neck until Han comes down and demands he puts on his old bolo tie. Kylo says that it’s dumb, but puts it on.

As they drive to prom, Kylo announces that he won’t be joining them because he’s meeting up with “a friend” at the mall. Rey asks if it’s one of his internet friends and Kylo says maybe. Rey sticks out her tongue and tells him he’s going to miss the most important night of his life, and he better be there on time to pick them up. Kylo says he’ll pick them up whenever he damn pleases, since it’s his car, and Rey get’s upset. Kylo’s friend meets them for dinner and they are rude, snooty, and mean. Kylo starts to act rude too, and Finn is glad when he drops them off and drives away. Rey is exasperated and pissed off. She seems upset that Kylo isn’t there, but it wears off as they dance.

At least with Kylo gone, Finn can ask her to dance since she has no one to embarrass. Rey looks surprised and says yes. Poe whistles and walks off to find something to do. Rey rests her head against Finn and he can smell the perfume he helped her to decide on. It smells nice, but Rey always smells nice. Finn asks her if she wants to maybe go outside and relax for a bit. They talk outside, just talk and unwind, and when they return a few songs later it’s clear to Poe that something about the nature of their relationship has changed.

Kylo picks them up a full twenty minutes after the dance ends and seems angry and coarse. Rey starts to get mad at him, so Finn squeezes her hand. Rey squeezes back and does not let go. Kylo seems to get angrier and Finn wonders if it’s because he noticed, or if it’s just because he’s always angry.

Han is excited when they all get back to the house because he’s just finalized plans on a trip for them all to go all across the world; he wants to take them all to Thailand and India and Japan and Spain and Egypt. Leia says that her brother is on a meditational journey and wants them to visit them. Kylo isn’t excited. He’s gained a cold, cynical attitude, and it only grows throughout the night. Han seems to falter and Rey starts to get upset again. She finally shouts at Kylo that he always ruins everything. Kylo shouts that it’s not his fault his family’s insane. Leia shouts, _would you please stop yelling_ and Han gathers up his maps and says maybe they’ll talk about this in the morning and now they should go to bed, and Kylo storms up to his room and starts blasting music. Leia and Han look at each other with worried expressions and Poe says that maybe they should watch movies at his house instead.

So they all go to Poe’s house and watch whatever’s on the television. His mom makes them delicious food before going back to sleep and Rey seethes. Finn pats her on the shoulder and sort of rubs her back, but it doesn’t help. After a while, she passes out onto him, and then Finn passes out onto Poe, and they all wake up on the couch.

Finn goes over to Rey’s house before graduation. She hears her and Kylo shouting, and Kylo telling her to just fuck off. Rey opens the door looking furious, then looks exhausted. They get ready at Poe’s house. Finn tells Rey she looks stunning and she turns red and says he looks nice too. Poe tells them to get a room.

After they graduate high school, they avoid the grade’s after party and just go to Poe’s house, and then Rey’s. Kylo is sulking in front of the television. Rey tells him to move and he tells her to fuck off again. Rey asks him when he became a dick and he asks why she’s always been a bitch. Rey storms over with her lip trembling and grabs the remote from him. Kylo looks at her in surprise, like he has never seen her before, like there is something he cannot believe. He asks if she is crying, shock tainting his voice, and Rey hits him over the head with the remote and shouts that she isn’t, then changes the channel. A bad soap opera plays and everyone seems to afraid to change it, except for Poe, who complains until he becomes invested in the plot. Leia comes over approximately two episodes later with an atlas and asks everyone to pick out one place they would like to visit.

They all go on a two month trip and meet Poe’s mother in Spain. She is fluent in Spanish and is a great tour guide, even if it’s her first time there too. Rey is excited to meet Leia’s brother and she wants to take self defense classes and learn how to meditate like him. Kylo says it’s dumb but that she shouldn’t do it alone.

When Finn packs for college, he finds a picture Rey drew for him when they were kids. He grins and finds a frame. When it’s time for Rey to leave, he gives it to her and her eyes get wet and she tells Finn to make sure to stay in touch. “You too,” she adds to Poe.

“Damn,” Poe says. “I was thinking of disappearing into the mountains like Kylo.”

“I’m not _disappearing into the mountains._ I’m backpacking. It’s a spiritual experience that-”

“That makes you disappear into the mountains.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Finn and Rey hug for a few seconds longer than need be and Rey gets in her car and drives away while Leia and Han wave. Then Rey backs up, gets out of her car, and kisses Finn before saying goodbye to Leia and Han again. She waves goodbye as she drives off and Finn grins like an idiot for the rest of the day.

Han does not stop being married to Leia, but he does stop acting like it. It’s as if their return home was a break from travelling, and soon he is off touring the world again. Kylo fades into the world like kindling into a flame. After a year Leia gives up on their return and leaves the family house behind. It seems to Rey like everyone in her family is always running away. Rey worries that one day she will do the same.

Finn makes a point to call Rey every day, but life gets busy so he makes it every single week. He calls Poe twice a month. Poe works every single job imaginable. He is an activist, a barista, a taxi driver, and says he is going to train to be a pilot once the money is saved up. Finn wonders if Poe will get his own plane. Maybe then everyone can get back together and travel the world again. Finn imagines Rey as his copilot and the view from the window. He pictures landing the plane on a mountainside, and Rey yelling at Kylo to get in. She pulls him up into the plane and threatens to push him back out again if he doesn’t behave. He imagines parachuting into a lake with her and sinking like stones, resurfacing together, and Rey pressing her lips to his. Finn doesn’t know where Kylo is. He hasn’t spoken to him in a long time.

One week, Rey doesn’t answer the phone. Finn leaves a short voicemail and lays in his bed, not knowing how to feel. He wonders if he’s missed out on something he’d been waiting for. He wonders if he should have chased after her car when she kissed him, or kissed her harder. He wonders why neither of them talk about that kiss. Rey calls him two days later and Finn feels as if something has been mended. He’s been reassured that something is going to stay.

That summer he and Rey and Poe all rent out an apartment together. It a summer of hands being held and Finn wishing for the courage to kiss her. He thinks he will try to before they all go off to school again, Poe for his first year, but Rey hugs him before he can try. They video chat. It is great. Finn asks her once if she’s ever dated anyone at her school. Rey says she’s never dated anyone, ever. Finn mentions the boy from the dance. Rey rolls her eyes. Finn tries to mention that he’s also only dated anyone, ever, because whenever he tried to ask her out in the fourth grade she would run away. Finn wants to ask Rey when he’ll finally catch her.

Poe asks for a helicopter for his birthday. Finn gets him a little electric one. Poe asks how he’s supposed to fly it over an ocean. Finn shoves him.

Rey calls Finn in May and says that she got a postcard from Kylo. She says she just got off the phone with Poe. She says Kylo is coming back into the country. She says that sometimes she loves Kylo. Rey calls Finn two days later and says that Kylo is back. She says he’s being detained overnight in a jail cell because of something Kylo doesn’t hear because Rey is so busy swearing and panting. She says that sometimes she hates Kylo. When she is done screaming and yelling and crying to Finn, he tells her he loves her. This is how she has ended every phone call to her since he was thirteen. Rey has always thought it was kind of cute and funny. Rey has never said she loves him. Rey makes a furious sound and hangs up.

At the end of the school year Finn is walking is walking from his dorm and nearly gets plowed over by a drunk kid. He breaks his foot and has to get a cast. He comes home and Rey’s at Leia’s old house, which Finn has never seen. He takes a bus out and she signs his cast. Finn asks if she remembers the time she broke her arm falling off Poe’s jungle gym. Rey says that it was Kylo’s fault. Han had forced him over and Rey will always say that he pushed her. Kylo is there, too. He is grounded even though he says he is an adult and Leia can’t ground him. Sometimes he leaves while Leia is shouting at him. Sometimes he sits silently next to Leia while she cries. Rey calls him her brother in passing and Finn sees Kylo go white. He wonders if Kylo has ever considered the possibility of having a family. He wonders if Rey has ever considered making her own family. He wonders if Rey will go out to dinner with him, like, together. Rey says she will. She does. Finn is too scared to kiss her but she puts her lips to his cheek when she drops him off. Finn wonders when his cast will be off, so he can drive Rey somewhere nice. Once it’s off, he does. There is a surplus of places he would like to take Rey, when she isn’t working and when Poe isn’t there. He drives down every weekend. Finn loves it when Poe visits, but he also loves it when it’s just him and Rey. But even then Finn feels like sometimes he’s just chasing Rey around and still hasn’t caught her. He thinks that Rey might be afraid he’ll leave. He thinks she’s even more afraid that she will.

Finn asks Poe to be his best man. Rey asks Kylo to be her maid of honor. He says he’ll do it, but only if he can give a speech about the time they went on a road trip and she skipped dinner and stayed up all night, then cried the next morning from hunger and sobbed from joy as they ate terrible drive through breakfast. Rey says he can tell it, but only if Kylo will wear a dress. Kylo says he’ll wear a dress if he can pick it out. Rey says that maybe he should be a bridesmaid instead. Kylo says he’s always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Rey says, “just shut up.”

Han walks Rey down the aisle and she is so beautiful in her dress that Finn has to blink and make sure he is really breathing. Their wedding is small but feels bigger than he could ever have imagined. Luke comes and Finn can see that Rey is excited to see him and overjoyed at his presence. He can also guess that she has given up on him ever visiting for more than a few days.

Poe jokingly asks if this means they can still have sleepovers. Finn, jokingly, says yes. But he also means it.

Rey throws her bouquet and Leia catches it. Han grins at her. Leia says she’s glad he’s home. Kylo makes a face. Rey and Finn cut their cake and Rey shoves a piece onto him. Finn grins and kisses her and gets cake all over her. It is a good day and it is followed by a good night. Poe visits often and sometimes they see Kylo. Han and Leia comes for the holidays. It is a good life.

Finn hangs the picture Rey drew for him, in it’s frame, in their living room. When people point it out he always tell the story and Rey always goes a little red. Finn says he had to chase after Rey for years. Rey says he never had to chase her at all.


End file.
